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My children are grown now so we missed the Elf on a Shelf extravaganza. And, no I am not sorry. Not that we didn’t have our own, certainly less KGB, elf tradition. It began with my father. But really, it began with his five sisters and three brothers on a tobacco farm in 1930s North Carolina. There wasn’t a lot of money in this big family but there was a lot of love. The older children looked out for the younger right down to making sure the magic and mystery of Christmas, elves and all, was never forgotten. They are all gone now; my father was the last. But, they left me with a lasting love of the season and an unshakeable belief in the power of family love.

It is a fact that I tend toward melancholy. This is not to be confused with having a sentimental streak. THAT I do not. At our recent yard sale—which nearly killed me and several of the shoppers—I all but threw merchandize (including vintage linen and quilts, 60-year old, pristine kid gloves, silver plate whiskey sour muddlers and a set of library steps) at the milling crowd. “Take it,” I screamed, “Just get it out of here!” When a particularly creepy man asked us if there was more to see inside the house I almost told him “Yes, just go in there and strip the joint!”

There is a distinctly cyclical nature to my days these days. I am a creature of routine, if not habit, and while I welcome the safety that comes with the “set list” of my life, I find myself saddened by the turn it has taken. Oh sure, there is the natural line that stretches from my own school days to those of my children, and now to the swift shift my oldest takes as he prepares to graduate from college and go to work (read, find a damn job). Of the three, he is the least likely, in temperament, to return home; he couldn’t wait to shake the Mom dust from his heels. And Thing Two? He has surprised me with his eagerness to find his own way, perhaps because he has always seemed so, oh I don’t know, cozy. As for Emma, I can practically hear the sproing as she grows up and away. And this is all fine.

I have been reading a lot of books about faeries and shape shifters lately. I read a lot of books, period. But, you knew that about me. Since my daughter Emma became a more eager reader in the last couple of years I have taken up Young Adult fiction. No, that’s not true. I have rediscovered that kind of fiction and I am terribly grateful to Emma for that. Right now, there is a lot of crud filed away under Young Adult, a lot of scary, ugly, angry stuff in those books. But, there is magic, too. There’s the real kind, faeries and wizards and talking animals, and there is the more subtle kind, those words written by a grownup, a mother or a father perhaps, that so perfectly capture a voice (theirs, maybe, their own voice remembered) that both Emma and I say “Yes, that is exactly how it feels!” Exactly how it still feels.

Here is something you should know about me. I’m not a crier, not really. I do not cry about sad/bad things happening in my life. Ever. I didn’t cry when my mother died. I’m not a hard-hearted Hannah, I just don’t cry about the big things. I do, however, weep copiously when small children sing at school concerts. I cry when I see a little person lost in the supermarket. I cry when I see a balloon floating away in the sky. I have been known to cry at that 1970s ad for some do-good organization that features a kid in group home writing a letter to Santa asking for a puppy. Does anyone remember that ad? One kid says “Santa won’t bring you a puppy!” And then, the do-gooder volunteer/ Secret Santa/postal worker guy reads the letter. On Christmas morning, the kid finds a puppy waiting for him. Of course he does. The look on his face? Priceless. The look on the pooh-poohing kid’s face? Oh, the humanity!!

In the mornings, after everyone has gone to school, I make my way through the house. I pick clothes up off the floor, stack notebooks, flush toilets and yes, make beds. Now, while it’s true that my children make their own beds, I remake them. I wonder if, when they are in their rooms at the end of the day, they look at their beds and marvel at how the duvets are smooth and unruffled, the pillows piled just so. Do they think, damn, I make a fine bed? Do they silently thank me for my controlling ways? Probably not.